Michael Carducci

Security & Deception: Lessons From a Professional Liar

7:30 PM MDT

“Forewarned is forearmed”
-Old Proverb

If it seems like humans are easy to deceive, it's because we are. The myriad traits that make humankind so eminently exploitable are practically baked into our DNA. Too often these same traits make it into the software we build. This session takes an entertaining look at why humans are so easy to fool and goes on to explore what we can do to overcome our weaknesses and build more secure software.

Security is everyone's responsibility but the burden disproportionally falls on us. As software engineers, we are the last line of defense in our organization. We build the technology and that technology is constantly scanned, probed, and tested. Building truly secure software requires going beyond mere functional requirements; it requires a complete shift in how we think about problems.

The Influential Engineer Overcoming resistance to change

8:30 AM MDT

By the end of this conference you will have learned many new tools and technologies. The easy part is done, now for the hard part: getting the rest of the teamand managementon board with the new ideas. Easier said than done.

Whether you want to effect culture change in your organization, lead the transition toward a new technology, or are simply asking for better tools; you must first understand that having a “good idea” is just the beginning. How can you dramatically increase your odds of success?

You will learn 12 concrete strategies to build consensus within your team as well as 6 technique to dramatically increase the odds that the other person will say “Yes” to your requests.

As a professional mentalist, Michael has been a student of psychology, human behavior and the principles of influence for nearly two decades. There are universal principles of influence that neccessary to both understand and leverage if you want to be more effective leader of change in your organization.

In this session we discuss strategies for getting your team on board as well as when/how to approach management within the department and also higherup in the organization.

Influential Engineer Part 2 Persuasion Patterns

10:30 AM MDT

In Part 1, you learned the core principles of influence and persuasion. How to we take this back to the office and apply what we've learned?

We dive deep in to specific strategies to get both the team and the business on board with your ideas and solutions. We cover several realworld patterns you can follow to be more effective and more persuasive. Part 1 was conceptual, part 2 is practical.

Productivity for the hopelessly disorganized

1:00 PM MDT

It happens to us all; there are simply days where it seems impossible to get anything done. This session focuses on techniques and tips to get into the zone, stay in the zone and to protect your productivity, even in disruptive environments.

Rather than focusing on any one productivity methodology (e.g. GTD) This talk analyzes the internal and external factors that affect our productivity and offers broader strategies to get back on track.

Docker for WebDevelopers

2:45 PM MDT

Modern web apps have many moving parts. Setting up development environments can be tedious. Truly mirroring staging and production environments can be a nightmare (especially when including app settings, security settings, back-end services etc.)

In this session we dive deep into the Hows and Whys of using Docker for client-side development. You'll leave this session with a sound understanding of the fundamentals of docker as well as the tools that can be used to effortlessly create a full development environment.

From Zero to Continuous Delivery - Concepts, Culture and Overview

4:30 PM MDT

Continuous delivery is not a pipe-dream technology, reserved only for the “cool kids” at hip tech startups. Although it's not easy, many concepts are within reach of most teams. That being said, it require more than simple technology changes. Attend this session to learn the fundamental concepts of CD, how to build your CD pipeline with Gradle and Jenkins, and recommendations on tools and best practices.

No prior knowledge is assumed and this talk will start from first principles.

Part one begins with a detailed overview of what CD is (and isn't) and how to build a business case for CD. Making both the technical case and business case for CD is vital as it's necessary to get the entire organization on board with the changes required.

Part two is a deeper dive into building a continuous delivery pipeline with Gradle and Jenkins (although the broader concepts can be applied to the tooling of your choice) You'll see how easily Gradle integrates with Java and how to leverage configuration management and gradle plugins to build all of your quality gates.

VDD: Value Driven Development 10 Golden Rules for incremental Greatness

8:30 PM MDT

On the NFJS tour, there are questions that seem to come up again and again. One common example is “How do we determine which new tools and technologies we should focus our energy on learning?” another is “How do we stop management from forcing us to cut corners on every release so we can create better and more maintainable code?” which, after awhile becomes “How can we best convince management we need to rewrite the business application?”

There is a single metaanswer to all these questions and many others.

It begins with the understanding that what we as engineers value, and what the business values are often very different (even if the ultimate goals are the same) By being able to understand these different perspectives it's possible to begin to frame our arguments around the needs and the wants of the business. This alone will make any engineer significantly more effective.

This session picks up from where “Stop writing code and start solving problems” stops discussing what is value, how do we align the values of the business with the needs and values of the engineer.

MySQL Optimization and Performance Tuning

9:00 AM MDT

This hands on workshop covers both the theory and practice of optimizing and tuning a production MySQL Database.

Basic knowledge of Linux and SQL are expected. You'll be given ssh access to a vm to review diagnostic data and to make both code and database changes.

Architecting Big Data Solutions

11:00 AM MDT

This session covers the landscape of Big Data tools, technologies and best practices in 2018. You'll leave this session armed with the knowledge you need to build Big Data solutions by assembling the best technologies for you.

We cover the components of a big data pipeline, options available for each module and the pros, cons and best practices for each option.

Diving into Big Data and Hadoop I

1:30 PM MDT

Big Data is exploding into our industry and these skills are increasingly in demand. Much of our existing body of knowledge needs to be updated, however as Big Data solutions present a number of unique challenges. In this half-day workshop we start with the question “What is Big Data?” and “How do big data solutions differ from traditional data architectures.” We then dive into core Hadoop technologies to tackle your Big Data challenges and dive into several tools and technologies for distributed processing of large datasets.

The Big Data Space is rapidly changing and with a seemingly dizzying number of technology choices, one might not know where to begin. Our goal with this half-day workshop is to give you an overview of a number of technologies, their respective strengths and weaknesses, and enough knowledge to make informed decisions and built great tech!

Diving into Big Data and Hadoop II

3:15 PM MDT

Big Data is exploding into our industry and these skills are increasingly in demand. Much of our existing body of knowledge needs to be updated, however as Big Data solutions present a number of unique challenges. In this half-day workshop we start with the question “What is Big Data?” and “How do big data solutions differ from traditional data architectures.” We then dive into core Hadoop technologies to tackle your Big Data challenges and dive into several tools and technologies for distributed processing of large datasets.

The Big Data Space is rapidly changing and with a seemingly dizzying number of technology choices, one might not know where to begin. Our goal with this half-day workshop is to give you an overview of a number of technologies, their respective strengths and weaknesses, and enough knowledge to make informed decisions and built great tech!

MongoDB Patterns, Pitfalls, and Best Practices

5:00 PM MDT

Interest in MongoDB and other NoSQL platforms has waxed and waned over the years, however, Mongo remains an enormously useful tool.

In this session, you will learn everything you need to know to master MongoDB.

We dive deep into advanced topics, data architecture, tooling options, clustering, replication and sharding. You'll learn when Mongo is the perfect tool for the job (and when it isn't) and what's new in 2018